Acute and chronic effects of combined exercise on ambulatory blood pressure and its variability in hypertensive postmenopausal women.

The aim of this study was to investigate the acute and chronic effects, and their correlation, after combined aerobic and resistance exercises in blood pressure (BP) and its variability (BPV) in hypertensive postmenopausal women. Fourteen hypertensive postmenopausal women monitored BP at rest and during 24 h by ambulatory BP monitoring in a control day without exercise performance a pretraining (baseline), after an acute exercise session (acute), and after a chronic exercise training for 10 weeks (chronic). After exercise training, systolic BP (SBP, Δ = -150 mmHg.24 h), diastolic BP (DBP, Δ = -96 mmHg.24 h), and mean BP (MBP, Δ = -95 mmHg.24 h) area under the curve were smaller than baseline measurements (P < 0.05) with no difference between acute and baseline measurements. The SBP (ΔSD ₂₄ = -2, ΔSD _dn = -1.7, and ΔARV ₂₄ = -1.9 mmHg), DBP (ΔSD ₂₄ = -0.9, ΔSD _dn = -0.8, and ΔARV ₂₄ = -0.9 mmHg), and MBP (ΔSD ₂₄ = -1.5, ΔSD _dn = -1.3, and ΔARV ₂₄ = -1.2 mmHg) variability reduced in acute session in relation to baseline, with no chronic effects. There are moderate correlations between acute and chronic responses in wake SBP, sleep DBP, and SD ₂₄ . In conclusion, combined exercise reduces ambulatory BP chronically but not acutely. In contrast, BPV decreases after an acute session but not chronically. Awake SBP, sleep DBP, and SD ₂₄ indices are promising candidates to predict individual cardiovascular responses to exercise.
Competing Interests: None